"Misbah has started to feel the heat and the grouping within the team has led to its poor performance. It seems that Hafeez, despite being nominated for Twenty20 captaincy by Misbah, is working towards ODI captaincy too and Misbah has realised that," The Express Tribune quoted a source, as saying.

Prior to the Sri Lankan tour, the PCB had appointed Mohammad Hafeez as the Twenty20 captain as well as Misbah's deputy in ODIs and Tests.

Pakistan has been performing poorly in the ODI series and shocked all after losing seven wickets for just 13 runs during their chase in the 4th match. The performance of Hafeez, Umar Akmal, Shahid Afridi and Younus Khan has been below par too.

A PCB official said that head coach Dav Whatmore, surprisingly, is in the mix as well, having overturned some of Misbah''s decisions, including the continuous selection of Akmal.

"Misbah grew frustrated with Akmal's poor show and wanted to drop him but Whatmore decided against that. Whatmore used his power to retain Akmal," the official said.